


In case of emergency, break glass and run

by saltstreets



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, End of the World, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-14 21:03:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13598325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltstreets/pseuds/saltstreets
Summary: Everybody knows that surviving the apocalypse requires intelligence, athleticism, and a complete lack of suspicious travelling companions.Two out of three's not bad.





	In case of emergency, break glass and run

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redandgold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redandgold/gifts).



> This fic started out as a very srs post-apocalypse drama but Xabi started flanderising himself so badly that by the time they got to the Allianz, I had to either dump the idea entirely or rewrite it as lighter fare. Et voila.
> 
> Hope you like it, darling recip! :*

 

 

The forest clawed its way off the edges of the map, roots twisting in deep and the dark canopy rising high along the ridges and the hills, spearing the sky.

Philipp was glad that the trees had survived, when so much else had not. It was good to have the trees.

It was oddly calm in the forest, at least compared to the city he’d just cautiously made his way through. There was no sparking of shredded electrical wires, no far-off warning call of shattering glass, no car sirens piercing the air.

Even after three months (and had it really been only three months? And not only in the way that it seemed so much longer because it did, but in the way that it was genuinely uncertain) there were still always car sirens. It was what Philipp hated most of all when he was moving through a city.

The other sounds he didn’t mind because despite the depressing reminders that civilisation had very possibly thrown in the towel once and for all, they were still the sounds of the environment. They could tell him things about which buildings housed people and which fallen wires were live. Philipp could learn from those sounds.

Car sirens were at first useful, indicating that something had created a disturbance, but after ten seconds they were just loud, screaming into the air as though someone was going to come and save them. And no one was going to come and save them.

Philipp hated it. Mostly because screaming pointlessly into the air was something that he would quite like to do himself, and couldn’t. Really, the car alarms just added insult to injury.

So he was glad to be back in the forest.

 

 

He was just about to secure the rope around his waist that would be binding him to the trunk of the pine tree he had chosen for the night when he was alerted by the sound of someone moving through the woods. And not just any someone, but someone who knew _how_ to move. The smooth sound of depressed pine needles and the light _swish_ of something like windbreaker material were the only warning he got, but it was enough.

He had realised fairly quickly on into this whole mess that he was good at surviving. Philipp had always known that his senses were sharp and his reflexes good: they had to be, to play at the level he’d played at. Apparently traits which made a good footballer were also traits which made a good citizen of the end of the world.

Whoever was moving on the forest floor below him was taking care not to make too much noise, which told Philipp two pieces of information about whoever it was down there: first that they weren’t infected, and second that they weren’t a complete idiot.

Philipp had been frankly sick of zombies as a pop culture trend long _before_ the end of the world, thank you very much, and hadn’t devoured some of the same science fiction lit that his team mates had, but he had managed to put together that even with half (or he assumed roughly half, the last reliable statistics that had come through before most mainstream information channels had gone black had been twenty percent infected and climbing fast, and Philipp was a pessimist) the planet lost in the haze of some sort of blood-crazed madness, the more dangerous by far could still be the people who were healthy, in full control of their mental faculties, and very, very angry.

He gently leaned over and peered out through the gap in the clouds of pine needles around him, eyes scanning the ground below. He was breathing quietly through his mouth, trying to relax his body so as not to shake the branches cradling him, but also trying not to fall out of the tree. It had taken him a while to figure out how to sleep on a branch without falling out. Philipp was intensely grateful that no one had been witness to the learning process.

Movement. The soft tread of feet. A glimpse of a figure, moving through the darkening woods. A glimpse of-

Philipp tensed in surprise. The branch shivered with the movement.

Below him, Xabi Alonso froze. And looked cautiously upwards.

Philipp was still buried close to the trunk of the pine tree, mostly obscured by branches and the gathering dusk. Xabi’s eyes flicked to and fro, searching out the source of the motion, maybe a squirrel, maybe not-

“Xabi.” Philipp called down, softly, sliding himself into better view. “Xabi.”

To Xabi’s eternal credit, he only blinked rapidly in confusion for half a second before saying in the cool tone of a man who has run into an acquaintance in a cafe, “I see you’ve found a good tree. Would you mind if I joined you?”

 

 

Once Xabi had clambered up through the pine-tarred branches to settle himself on a sturdy bough next to Philipp, they stared at each other silently for a good minute, sizing each other up until it became too dark to really see anything and Philipp began feeling foolish.

“So,” he said, trying to decide which tone of voice to use on the unexpected Xabi and coming out with something between It’s-past-lights-out-so-put-down-the-Xbox-controller and Explain-to-me-again-what-you-think-you’re-doing-with-all-these-training-cones. “Here you are.”

“Here I am,” agreed Xabi. “Here you are.”

Two pairs of eyes strained to pick out two matching stony expressions.

“Wouldn’t have expected to find you here. Thought you’d be in England.” Last Philipp had heard of Xabi, he’d been doing things for English television and occasionally posting cryptic tweets about the weather.

“Not at all. I was in Italy when everything began getting very bad. Rome. I’ve been making my way up north ever since.” Xabi made a face. “Terrible times. I get no respect in Italy.”

Philipp snorted. “I don’t think anyone is getting much respect these days.”

“I don’t know about that, when I was leaving the city I heard that there was some sort of survivalist cult sprung up around Totti.”

“Why am I not surprised.”

Xabi shifted on the branch, jostling the tree. A few pine needles came loose from the boughs above and rained down on Philipp’s head. “What are you doing here? And alone, Philipp, that’s not very safe.”

“You were alone,” Philipp shot back.

“Yes but you were in Munich when everything happened. I would have thought to find you leading up a brave new world when I arrived. I was counting on it.”

That made Philipp sit up. “You were coming back to find me?” Interesting. "I wasn't in Munich, you know."

"You were not?" He can’t see Xabi in the now near-complete darkness but he can picture the elegant shrug of his shoulders when he speaks. “Well, where else would I go? I have many friends in Munich. I did think you were there.”

“You could have sailed to Spain,” Philipp challenged. “Much quicker. Where’s the lateral thinking you used to be so good at?”

Xabi harrumphed. “I do not know how to sail,” he admitted sulkily, as though the confession pained him. “And I wasn’t about to put my life in the hands of some mercenary pirate captain with a boat and hope that the bastard didn’t murder me somewhere off the coast of Corsica and take all that I had.”

“What an uplifting view of human nature,” said Philipp dryly.

“Says the man also travelling alone and sleeping tied to tree trunks.”

“That’s for safety against infected,” Philipp defended himself.

“People don’t have to be sick to be dangerous.” Xabi shook his head. “There are groups, they move mostly by the roads. Taking what they need from others, to survive. Or just to take things. I have been nearly caught once, twice.”

Philipp looked at him hard. “To be entirely honest, I would be warning other people away from _you._ ” It was not terribly difficult to imagine Xabi taking control over one of the odd barricades that Philipp had passed on the roads, demanding tolls from travellers trying to move through. It was all rather medieval in a way that made a little part of Philipp rather proud of humanity for managing to be such _bastards_ no matter what time or circumstance they found themselves in.

Although admittedly, perhaps if humanity had been just a little bit nicer, the whole world wouldn’t have gone to shit roughly four weeks after the virus, or whatever it was, had started really taking out significant portions of the population.

Xabi grinned toothily. “Flatterer.”

 “Hmm,” Philipp said, wondering. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Xabi, because he did. Or rather, he trusted Xabi to make the right decision when he had the ball at his feet and was being hounded along the touchline by a burly defender. He trusted Xabi to know when rolling the dice on a fifty yard screamer was appropriate and when it wasn’t. He trusted Xabi to be able to listen quietly and transform abstract tactics into tangible results on the first go.

He trusted Xabi in these things because he had observed Xabi’s reliability in said situations. He wasn’t yet sure if he trusted Xabi not to stab him in the middle of the night and take the stash of iodine tablets he had in his backpack.

“Clever idea, with the tree,” said Xabi graciously, gesturing at the rope that Philipp had rigged up. “Safer than sleeping on the ground, for sure.”

“I’ve been staying out of towns and cities,” Philipp told him. “So trees it’s been.”

“Smart. Not very comfortable, though.”

A beat.

“I have a spare rope if you’d like to borrow it,” said Philipp, the picture of generosity.

“I would greatly appreciate that.”

Philipp reached up to where his pack was hooked over a conveniently broken branch, and extracted a small coil of rope from one of the outer pockets. “I was in Paris," he revealed, "when things began going _down_ downhill, at a charity conference. The first thing I did when I decided I was going to try and make my own way back to Munich was go to an outdoors supply store,” he explained, handing Xabi the rope. “Which is why I’m wearing something slightly more sensible than a tux and dress shoes.”

“More sensible but much less fashionable,” Xabi drawled, carefully turning on his branch so that he could loop the rope around the trunk of the tree. “Although,” he added, making a face at a large smear of pine sap which had dripped onto the sleeve of his dark blue windbreaker, “I do take your point.”

Philipp nodded and left it at that. It probably wasn’t necessary to mention that when he’d gone into the shop he’d found two of the employees tearing into a third, and had been forced into a tricky manoeuvre with a kayak paddle snatched hastily from a display.

Xabi made quick work with the rope and Philipp was quietly proud that he’d managed to figure out a secure-seeming system on the first go. He could probably take reasonable credit for the honing of at least _some_ of Xabi’s critical thinking and problem solving skills. Or at least for their upkeep.

Still, Xabi wouldn’t exactly be Philipp’s first choice of who to trudge through the end of the world with. Xabi was a bit too sideways, a bit too much like Philipp himself drawn to his logical conclusion. Philipp would have preferred someone more straight-forward, and leave the sideways to himself.

But Xabi was here and no one else.

“Have you been on foot this whole time?” Xabi asked, a sleepiness in his voice that sounded just realistic enough for Philipp to know it was faked. “I saw some cars on the road not far away that looked promising. Perhaps we could get one going.”

It wasn’t Xabi’s subtlest work, but Philipp supposed that he could be forgiven, as there was only a small chance that Philipp actually would tell him to get lost.

“I had a car in the beginning, out of Paris. But it broke down a few days ago and I haven’t found anything else.”

“Hm.” Xabi yawned very convincingly. “We can look for one tomorrow?”

At least, since they knew each other, Philipp already knew to be wary of Xabi, and knew his weaknesses in case they had to fight over a first aid kit or the last bottle of sparkling water in existence or something similarly vital.

Actually, come to think of it, Xabi wasn’t German and probably didn’t care if his water sprudeled or not. He would probably let Philipp just _have_ the sparkling water with minimum of fuss.

Philipp’s spirits lifted significantly. “Yes,” he said, decided, “we can look for one tomorrow.”

 

 

The next morning dawned with the pale grey light of early summer. It was probably early June, by Philipp’s count, although he couldn’t be sure. He once again bemoaned that he’d taken the watch that didn’t show the date alongside the time with him when he’d gone to Paris. His good outdoors watch, with the date and compass, was presumably still sitting on his dresser in his Munich apartment. His phone had run out of battery a month ago and although he still had it in his pack, he wasn’t hopeful of finding a functioning outlet any time soon.

“Guten Morgen,” said Xabi with a wide grin and only partially mangled pronounciation. He had already untied himself from the tree and was spooling the rope back into a neat coil. “Shall we?”

That was one night gone without Xabi stabbing him and taking all his things, leaving him for dead. Philipp made a mental notch in the ‘keep him alive’ column on his internal spreadsheet titled ‘What To Do With Xabi Alonso’.

 _When did you get so suspicious?_ Drawled a small hallucination of Xabi himself, lounging across a few cells at the bottom of the spreadsheet.

 _I’ve always been this suspicious,_ Philipp told him succinctly. _It just wouldn’t have made any sense for you to murder me in the normal world. And it wasn’t as though you had any chance of stealing the captaincy from me at Bayern._

 _Your armband or your life,_ hallucination Xabi said, cocking back his fingers into a mock pistol and winking far more salaciously than Philipp had ever seen him actually do in real life. _Bang._

 

 

They walked for about an hour, keeping the road just in view so that they could follow it while not being too exposed along the thinning edges where the trees fell away for the curve of the tar.

The road was a small one and quiet, and sadly just as lacking in abandoned vehicles as it had been for the past few days Philipp had walked it. They might have had better luck with the autobahn, but that also upped the chanced of meeting someone –or several someones- with less than friendly attitudes.

When they reached the outskirts of a small town, Philipp deliberated for just long enough to hear Xabi breathe in, about to speak, to which he started heading in towards what seemed to be the town centre. Xabi followed quietly behind, words swallowed.

The only life they encountered was a small grey alley cat which looked at them disdainfully from where it was curled comfortably on the partially collapsed awning of a restaurant.

“Where is everyone, do you think?” Philipp asked, carefully picking his way around the debris scattered from an overturned bin which sprawled across the street and pavement.

“Either safe inside their houses, watching through the curtains and cursing at us to go away, or shambling around the back looking for blood,” said Xabi carelessly.

“Well, then let’s shamble about looking for a ride. Come on.” He turned, leading Xabi down a residential-looking street.

A lace curtain in the front window of one of the houses they passed twitched suspiciously at them. Philipp rolled his eyes. People could be so dramatic. Maybe if everyone hadn’t seen so many horror movies about zombies, this entire situation could have been handled with a lot more grace and aplomb than it actually had been.

But then again, thinking back to the group of people in tattered business attire who’d transformed the ruin of an ancient guard tower along the Rhine back into a bristling fortress and had demanded he give them any medications he might have on him (Philipp had relinquished a half packet of aspirin and had been allowed to drive across the bridge they were guarding), maybe everyone in the world had just been waiting for the opportunity to cast aside the thin shroud of polite civilisation they’d all been huddling under and revert back to being shamelessly horrible. Maybe this was just a good excuse to let off steam. Maybe outside of Europe the plague had been put an end to and everyone was back to normal, and it was just this pack of idiots who were secretly enjoying the restoration of the terrible past. God knew people complained about modernity enough.

He was startled out of his reverie by a triumphant shout from Xabi.

“Look!"

Philipp followed the line of Xabi’s sight to the presumably once-neat front garden of one of the small houses lining the street. Lying on its side on the ripped up grass was a motorbike, with blue panelling and dark grey seats. There was a set of leather saddlebags across the back.

And more importantly, a key in the ignition.

“Now this is style,” Xabi crowed, heaving the bike upright and peering at the dials. “And not empty of petrol, either. We can get a decent way on this. I know how to ride one, I used to-” he stopped. “Well, it doesn’t matter. Come on, we can both fit.”

Philipp baulked at the idea of the bike, which seemed awfully exposed. “We’re just going to steal this out of someone’s front garden? We know there are still people in this town.”

“I don’t think this bike will be missed,” Xabi said, and nodded towards the house.

The house was for all intents and purposes undisturbed. Except for the front door, which was hanging open on only one hinge, the wood around the doorknob and lock splintered and hacked at as though by an axe.

Philipp didn’t shudder, but it was a close run thing.

He closed his eyes briefly and then turned back to Xabi. “I still think we should find a car. I’ll feel ridiculous hanging on to you all the way to Munich.”

“We can’t be too far away from the city,” said Xabi cajolingly. “Don’t be such a, _a stick in the mud_.”

“A what?”

“ _A stick in the mud_. It’s an English expression. It means, stop telling me I can’t do whatever I want to do, because I’m going to do it.”

“Certainly sounds like something the English would come up with.”

“Look at it this way,” said Xabi in a reasonable tone of voice that immediately put Philipp on full alert to the fact that he was about to be swindled, “at least it doesn’t have a sidecar.”

The vision of having to ride in a sidecar all the way to Munich with Xabi driving was so horrible that Philipp nearly blacked out.

“We’ll need to get more fuel,” he said finally, shaking the image of Xabi with a leather jacket and inexplicably long hair flowing in the wind while Philipp was hauled tooth-chatteringly along at a breakneck speed six inches from the ground. “If we want to be sure of reaching the city today.”

All of Xabi’s perfect white teeth were on display in the triumphant grin that he flashed Philipp’s direction. “Of course, captain.”

Philipp swatted at him half-heartedly, aware that he had lost that particular power struggle. He made a grab for his wounded pride by delegating, which was always soothing. “Go see if there’s a shed or something where these people might have kept petrol cans. I’ll see if there’s anything useful in the saddlebags.”

There wasn’t much. Some packaged food and chewing gum, which he kept, but the rest was mostly clothing. Philipp discarded everything except for the socks (after cautiously inspecting each pair to ensure cleanliness). He was just strapping the saddlebags closed again when Xabi came back around the corner of the house.

“I found an empty can,” he said. “Maybe we can find a-” Xabi stopped. Stopped dead.

A woman had emerged from the house and now stood quavering in the doorway. She wore a pale blue apron over a jeans and a striped shirt, and one brown house shoe. There was dark, clotted blood around her mouth and on her hands.

Xabi was frozen against the side of the house. Philipp by the bike felt his blood chill.

He saw Xabi glance quickly between the motorbike and the woman, take in the blood and her eyes gazing sightlessly out of the house, and then back at the motorbike.

“Philipp,” Xabi said, pitching his voice low and smooth, “can you start the motorbike, please? When I tell you?”

The infected woman twitched, and tilted her head in the direction of Xabi’s voice. He blinked quickly at Philipp, his mouth a thin line.

There was no way to argue with him, not without setting off the shell of a human who was wavering in the doorway. The infected were near blind but could react violently to the smallest sound. And of, course, the smell of blood. It just wouldn’t have been the end of the world without the smell of blood. Philipp once again cursed whatever cliché-loving higher power had dropped this mess down upon them.

The sound of a motorbike starting was in no way going to slip under the tight radar of the infected woman’s hearing. They didn’t even know if the bike _would_ start, let alone move.

“Philipp.”

The infected took a step towards the sound of Xabi’s voice.

“When I tell you, please,” said Xabi, and, twisting in one fluid motion, flung the petrol can as hard as he could in the direction of the road.

The can clattered to the tar with a loud, tinny clang. The infected woman’s hand twitched, and she darted, violent and rapid, down the grass past Xabi towards the can.

“Now!”

Philipp turned the key in the ignition. The motorbike spat, and then growled, and then Xabi was flinging himself over the saddle and hauling Philipp’s arms around him.

There was a rusty hiss from behind them and Philipp saw a bloody hand extend towards them, before the motorbike leapt forward, skidding across the muddy grass before the rubber tyres bit down on the paved road, and then they were off.

Philipp’s heart thudded against the curve of Xabi’s spine, his fingers curled so tightly into Xabi’s jacket that the metal zipper he’d collected into his grasp chewed painfully into his palm. The wind roared coldly in his ears. Distantly, as though through a long tunnel, he could hear Xabi whispering to himself, _okay, alright, good, safe, away, away, away._

 

 

They reached the outskirts of Munich as the sun was beginning to get low and red-orange in the sky. It was almost insulting how lovely the dying light looked, skipping across the long, low clouds streaking the sky. The end of the world should have less rosy colours and birds calling for evening, and more fire and brimstone, Philipp thought, irritated. Whoever was running this show was doing a terrible job of it.

Despite the day getting dangerously close to drawing its conclusions and shutting up shop for nightfall, they went straight to the stadium without having to discuss it. When they had reached the outer ring road Xabi had simply started heading north towards the Allianz.

Philipp had noted when Xabi didn’t turn off of the ring and smiled to himself. It was good to know he could depend on Xabi to just know some things without them having to be said or nudged into place.

“Risky,” he said, without context, his words hot against Xabi’s back.

“High reward though,” Xabi replied, and pushed the bike faster.

 

 

The motorbike ran out of gas on the overpass right before the turn-off for the stadium. They hadn’t stopped after leaving the small town, opting instead to bolt as fast as possible away from the residents hiding behind lace curtains and the dead-eyed infected with her grasping hands. They left the bike standing gleaming on the side of the road, and walked off the highway on foot.

Like the sunset, the Allianz looked unfairly wonderful amidst everything else, but unlike the sunset it made Philipp feel satisfied rather than angry. They hopped the turnstiles and the moment the vast cavern of the empty stadium swallowed them up, Philipp felt safer.

The grass had grown long and unkempt since the last game had been played here however many months ago. The nets were up, though, the tough synthetic fibres gleaming as ever. It would take a long, long time before those nets began to decay, Philipp thought. Especially with nobody to fire footballs into the back of them with enough force to tear.

Xabi looked around them bleakly. “Whenever the world ends I seem to wind up in empty stadiums.”

Philipp stared at him, outraged. “That must be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, you ass. Don't be so melodramatic.”

Xabi sighed for about three more seconds longer than anybody should have the ability to sigh for, and gracefully let himself fold into a crouch of utmost misery.

“The world’s never ended before and it isn’t ending now,” Philipp said, hauling on his arm to drag him back into a vaguely respectable standing position, “get up. Come on. Look around, we’re home.”

“Let me be sad for just a _moment,_ Philipp,” said Xabi aggrievedly. “I miss football.”

That Philipp couldn’t argue with, and he subsided into silence. It did seem a shame that they had nothing to kick about. He could have found a moment’s peace, perhaps, if he could just kick something back and forth.

He could clearly picture the swing of Xabi’s foot connecting with a football and was struck by a sudden thought. “Xabi, do you trust me?”

Xabi considered. “Yes,” he said, after a moment, “I do.”

“Why?”

“You’re my captain,” said Xabi as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “So I have to, otherwise I’m sunk.”

“We’re both retired, Xabi. And also, we’re in a bit of a zombie apocalypse. I haven’t been your captain for some time.”

Xabi shrugged. “Being the captain isn’t only about playing football. I figured that out very early in my career.” He reached forward swiftly and grabbed Philipp’s hand. Philipp could feel the calluses on his fingers. “I’m glad you didn’t get sick.”

There was dirt under Xabi’s nails. It seemed out of place with Xabi’s persona, like he should somehow have been above the grime of the situation. But then again, they did find themselves in extenuating circumstances.

“I’m glad I didn’t get sick either,” Philipp said, but the acerbic tone that usually would have marked such a comment was absent. He didn’t pull away from Xabi’s grasp.

The rise of the stadium had already blocked out the sinking sun, which must have been blazing low in the sky by then. They wouldn’t be able to leave that night. Travelling in the darkness into the city was too dangerous to risk.

“Philipp?” Xabi said, cautiously, and Philipp wondered briefly what the expression on his face looked like.

“Xabi,” he returned, and it wasn’t asking. “I think you’ve had your moment of sadness.” He pulled down, and Xabi followed. Xabi’s lips were a little bit dry and chapped but so was Xabi himself. There were no fireworks when Philipp kissed Xabi, but that was probably a good thing. Fireworks would only have drawn in a horde of infected to rip their guts out.

Philipp pulled back, breathing slightly more quickly than usual. Xabi looked a little dazed. The last remnants of light flared hotly across the sky above them. Philipp wondered if from the outside it looked as though the lights were still illuminating the stadium’s smooth white curves. Lighting it up red like on match day.

“Come on,” Philipp said, twisting his fingers to interlace with Xabi’s and giving him a small tug. “Let’s see if we can’t find a football.”

 

 


End file.
